Control Your Controllables

with a tidy sandwich and a kitchen clean out

In early January, just before my eldest son Luke went back to university, we set out after breakfast to run some errands. We returned gifts that were too small and too big, and he tried on the baggy jeans he says he needed this term - and then we were hungry. I parked the car in front of a shop that sells favourites like kewpie mayo, jars of chili crisp, the best loaves of sourdough and a great farro and tabouli salad. Behind the counter was a guy making sandwiches. Luke ordered ham and cheese; I went for egg salad. I love egg salad. My husband hates it. Even a freshly boiled egg takes him back to grade two when he took an egg salad sandwich to school and forgot about it until the filling had blossomed into a potent sulfur bomb in the bottom of his backpack. I have to eat them stealthily. 

The shop is owned by one of Luke’s old football coaches, a young guy who moved from football into sourdough a few years ago. He’s cool, the place is cool and it’s jammed packed, so we head back to the car to eat our sandwiches. 

I love this downtime with Luke. Holidays with older teenagers are now about friends, girlfriends, and other people's houses. I’ll take quiet moments like these, sitting in the car with small brown boxes on our laps filled with sandwiches made just for us. 

I open my box and marvel at how the sandwich - two halves side by side, cut-sides facing up - fits so perfectly inside this little box. The soft white slices of bread could have been baked to fit.  Stacked between the slices is an egg filling just thick enough not to ooze. Shards of iceberg lettuce peek out, fresh and crisp. 

I wonder if I lean into these small gifts of order when life feels messy. I thought about that today, two weeks after the sandwich moment, when my friend Aimée came over to organize my spice drawers. She offered to do this when she visited early in December and spotted the sad situation my spices were in: baggies of old dusty powders, leaking ziplocks, questionable jars of who knows what, nutmeg that had long since lost its scent. True friends, as it turns out, open a jar, inhale as if it were a glass of wine, then throw the contents in the compost bin. 

Aimée began by pulling everything out onto the counter. She divided all the jars, bags, elastic bound packages and doubles and triples of things into categories, then smelled everything. “Best before dates aren’t as important as aroma,” she explained. “Do these cinnamon sticks smell warm, fruity and peppery with a touch of vanilla?” “No,” I said, eyebrows furrowed, nose still inside the jar. “They smell medicinal,” and I tossed them into my compost pile. 

“Buy whole spices,” she said as she tipped whatever could be salvaged into recycled jars from her kitchen and mine. “They’re fresher and more trustworthy. And I like to use a spice or coffee grinder to pulverize seeds into powder when needed - seeds age better than powders.” These little tastes of wisdom came out as she carefully labeled the tops of the jars with a snip of painters tape and a sharpie marker. 

There were some obvious treasures in the drawers worth keeping, like the lime forward spice blend from Cap Beauty that I’ve been tossing on root vegetables before roasting, a jar of Aleppo chile flakes a friend gave me in the fall, and powdered turmeric, still vibrant when inhaled. The process was much like a closet purge - keep the key pieces that are fresh and spark joy, then purge the rest. 

While Aimée worked her magic, I cleaned out the fridge and slowly, lunch began to reveal itself. Inspired by the roasted leek salad in this book, I found leeks in the vegetable drawer and a wedge of cabbage that perked up when I peeled back a layer. I chopped the leeks and cabbage and roasted them with lemon zest, sea salt and olive oil until they were soft and slightly charred. I chopped kale and a pretty pink napa cabbage and found yesterday’s pickled red onions in the fridge. I tossed everything together with some leftover cooked quinoa, a handful of toasted nuts, and a really punchy lemony vinaigrette. Then, I grabbed the pomegranate leftover from my mantlepiece at Christmas, tore it open and tossed the seeds over the salad. I love it when I can eat the decorations.  

We sat down and ate together, amidst the almost finished spice drawers and an organized fridge. We were controlling our controllables, as the boys ski coach used to say. I was grateful, refreshed, and it felt good. 

Epilogue

A few weeks ago, when Luke and I were together in the car, I pulled out my sandwich from its tidy box and a small piece of egg fell alongside the driver’s seat of my husband’s car. Luke’s eyes widened; this was serious. With my sleeve pulled up, I reached my hand deep down the narrow space between the seat and the centre console. Eventually I retrieved the potential sulfur bomb, now full of crumbs and other bits of car detritus. I wiped my hand on a napkin and we laughed, a relieved but nervous laugh, then we finished our sandwiches.